


Novelties

by jujubiest, preussisch_blau



Series: Barry Loves Harry [4]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Age Difference, Barrison Prompts, Clothes Shopping, Fluff and Humor, Implied Barrison, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 06:51:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5324630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest, https://archiveofourown.org/users/preussisch_blau/pseuds/preussisch_blau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a direct sequel to Shirt Shopping, requested by preussisch_blau. We started joking around in the comments, and it somehow turned into this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Novelties

**Author's Note:**

  * For [preussisch_blau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/preussisch_blau/gifts).



“Pros of Earth-1,” Harrison says. “Calzones. Cons of Earth-1: someone thought this shirt was a good idea.”

“Oh c’mon,” Barry chides from just outside the dressing room. “It can’t be _that_ bad. Let’s see it.”

Reluctantly, Harrison slouches out of the stall, looking somewhere between horrified and mortified at the bizarre neon abomination currently covering his torso.

Barry takes one look at him and bursts out laughing.

“Oh god,” he gasps. “Take it off, get rid of it. It’s worse than I thought!”

“Wha—“ Harrison stops, his eyes narrowing. “This wasn’t a serious suggestion, was it.”

“God, no!” Barry guffaws. “But it was worth it. The look on your _face_!”

Harrison stalks back into the dressing room, undoing the buttons as fast as he can without ripping them. Not that he would mourn the destruction, but he really doesn’t want to have to pay for this monstrosity. Unless it’s so that he can burn it.

“Could’ve told me that _before_ I put it on!” He grouses over his shoulder.

“And miss seeing you in it? No way,” comes Barry’s cheeky reply. Harrison rolls his eyes.

“Child,” he mutters.

“Grump,” Barry shoots back. “I can hear you, you know.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” Harrison says, pulling his own nice, sedate navy blue shirt over his head. “I can’t believe you let me put that on.”

“I can’t believe you’re mortally offended by cheerful colors.”

“Neon plaid is not a _cheerful color_. It’s a cry for help.”

“Whatever,” Barry chuckles. “Come on, let’s keep looking. I promise I won’t do that again.”

“You’d better not,” Harrison mutters, as he allows himself to be dragged to outerwear. 

* * *

“See?” Barry says an hour later, as they’re leaving the store with a coat, some gloves, a hat, a scarf, two pairs of jeans, and a few more sweaters in muted blues and purples. “That wasn’t so bad, now was it?”

“After subjecting me to that, you owe me lunch,” Harrison counters.

Barry grins. The entire purpose of dragging Harry out to get more clothes was so that he’d have some excuse to spend more time alone with him, and lunch presents the perfect opportunity to extend their outing.

Of course, he didn’t count on Harry spending the entirety of lunch muttering murderously about that awful plaid shirt.

“If I were a supervillain,” he says mildly as he dips a French fry into his chocolate milkshake, “my crime of the century would be to steal and burn the entire stock of those shirts. In fact, I would dedicate my entire supervillain career to making sure such shirts were never inflicted on the world again.”

“So really, you’d be a morally gray anti-hero,” Barry jokes, stealing a fry from Harrison’s plate. “Anyway, you know, it could be worse.”

“Worse? Nothing could be worse than that shirt.”

“Oh, I dunno. I could have subjected you to novelty t-shirts.”

The glare he gets from Harry at that is almost Eobard levels of scary.

“Keep it up, Grumpy,” Barry grins. “I know just the shirt to match this mood you’re in.”

* * *

Harrison thinks nothing more of it until a package arrives for him at S.T.A.R. Labs a week later, from a place called Fifth Sun. He opens it curiously, wondering who _here_ would have sent him something…and then glares at the contents.

It’s a brown t-shirt with a cartoon rendering of a very unimpressed-looking cat on the front of it. It says: “I had fun once. It was awful.”

“Bartholomew. Henry. Allen.” Harrison yells. He sees a streak of lightning fly past the door of his lab.

“Oh, no you don’t,” he says, stalking out of the lab. “You may be able to outrun me now, but sooner or later _we are going to talk about this_!”

Only then does he notice Cisco and Caitlin’s wide-eyed stares. He clears his throat, a little embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he says, before retreating back into his temporary lab. He’s going to kill Barry when he gets his hands on him.

* * *

It doesn’t take long for Harrison to deeply regret his outburst. Not only are Cisco and Caitlin now asking pointed and annoyingly persistent questions about the nature of his relationship with Barry, gifting him novelty t-shirts has become a _thing_ around the lab.

The first two arrive a week after the initial incident, within a day of each other. Harrison groans when he sees them, because they’re just _terrible._

The first one has a stick figure holding an Erlenmeyer flask on it, and it reads: “Stand back! I’m going to try science!”

The second one is an image of every kind of connection port Wells has seen so far in this world for electronic equipment, with the caption: “When in doubt, try another hole.”

There’s no indication of _who_ sent them, although Harrison suspects by the way Cisco is snickering when he sees them that it wasn’t Barry this time. He rolls his eyes and goes back to work. Honestly, he’s surrounded by children.

A week later, yet another one arrives. This one is a heinously bright blue with “TRUST ME I’M A DOCTOR” emblazoned across the front, under what looks vaguely like a phone booth.

“Cisco!” He barks. “Who keeps sending these?”

Cisco appears in the doorway and shrugs, and then disappears again. Wells tosses the shirt aside and spends the rest of the day grumbling under his breath, shooting death glares at the offensive blue material every few minutes.

Barry tells him he should take it as a compliment.

“It means you’re part of the team,” he says. Wells reminds Barry that he isn’t exactly a team player, and is presented the next day with a shirt that says: “Doesn’t Play Well With Others.”

This goes on for nearly a month, until Wells finally just starts ignoring them completely. He doesn’t even open the last three that come in, just leaves them stacked neatly in the corner, out of his way and his immediate line of sight.

Then he gets a package with a return address for a Felicity Smoak. She sounds vaguely familiar, so he googles her…and then, curiosity piqued, opens the package to find…

A t-shirt with the word “bacon” spelled out in atomic symbols.

Harrison hits the roof. He tosses the shirt aside and heads for the Cortex.

“WHY IS THE CEO OF PALMER TECHNOLOGIES SENDING ME NOVELTY T-SHIRTS?! HOW DOES SHE EVEN KNOW WHO I AM?”

His inquiry is met with that familiar streak of lightning zipping by him on its way out of the Cortex.

“BARRY ALLEN,” Harrison bellows, following along at a normal pace. “COME BACK HERE AND EXPLAIN YOURSELF!”

Behind him, he hears Caitlin and Cisco cackling.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I Had Fun Once (it was awful)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5338496) by [preussisch_blau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/preussisch_blau/pseuds/preussisch_blau)




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